I hope to enjoy it. The bad times will come, they always have, they always do, but there's too many prettier things to focus on. Rain never lasts forever, right?

Have you ever stared at the sky long enough that you start to smile and marvel at how wonderfully bizarre it looks? I feel a smile itching at my lips when birds pass me by, when I have to duck under a tree reaching out to pat me on the head, when I hear someone laughing themselves to exhaustion even in a video.

Speaking of videos, quite the cool, relatively new medium for art, isn't it? Films are so very pretty to watch at times. So devastating in good ways. They will break your heart and build it anew in two short hours. I've seen so many beautiful things made by beautiful people and I do feel blessed and grateful to be here with you once in a while.

I savour those moments. I could say there's a certain career I'm aiming for or a girl I hope to one day marry. Truth is, I'm not sure exactly what job I'll have or how long it'll last before I try something else entirely, nor am I sure if I'll have the chance to ever date a woman since I'm too scared to try in this homophobic little country of mine... 200 million little.

What I do know is that there are pretty little things. There are butterflies and the smell of baked goods and good cooking. There's all sorts of sensory experiences and haunting creative endeavors by the constantly-searching people of this strange world.

We scour the earth for what will consume us with joy and passion, forgetting that right here and now, there is beauty even then. It's so easy to forget. Tonight, I'm thankful for the feeling of my little brother's foot against my side and the fan saving me from sweating up buckets. I'm grateful for the breaths I can take with no harm or hassle and the way my phone shines at me though my loneliness, reminding me that even if the empty void that lives somewhere within me is aiming to consume me some days instead of staying peaceful and quiet, I can always find an alternative to fill my existence with colour, even for a little while. I have before.

Just got to look.

Hey. Been a while. Hope you're okay. This world they say you made... Quite a place.

I'm curious about something. There are sections of your people through history who have fought and killed in your name. Many still pass judgement now based on the words of the Bible since everything those men wrote is thought to be from the Holy Spirit. Those words still have people suppressing themselves and hiding today. I won't blame you for it. Humans be humaning, we were built that way by...

Just wanted to know how you feel about it. Does it upset you, too?

I just use whatever comes to mind and feels right. I tend to follow my instinct for most things. And sometimes, the name I choose can become symbolic in itself later on. I once gave a character the middle name Hyacinth, finding out later that the meaning humans have given to the flower resonate with him quite well. I once named a character Emily and had the man she thought was her runaway, biological father call her by the full thing, "Emilia", because it was he that gave it to her before he left. I named two characters Adam and Steve because hey, gay. Devon and Trevor cos it sounded like it rhymed. Elozonam because I wanted to find an Igbo name without "chi" or "chukwu" meaning God in them, seeing as I'm not a Christian and neither was he. His name means "don't forget me". I'm rather fond of how pretty it is. Elozonam. I'm planning on a character nicknamed Lucifer for funzies, his real name Lucian or something, though he may never see the light of day. Many of my creations haven't, honestly. There's a girl called Nebula cos her mother loved the cosmos and quite a few with names that begin with Z because it's my favourite letter. Any character I have with a name that starts that way is almost certainly a self-insert.

I have many names for myself, too. Zee, Zedd, Icarus, Rainbow. A few other, less used Z-starting names. It's fun. Names are important. We use them over and over again. If I'm gonna make a character I'll love enough to flesh them out, I definitely need a name that melds with my mind to go with it.

And that's that.

The details aren't easy to share so I'll stay vague.

There were insults, there were cobwebs, there were touches

That metaphorically singed my skin in the worst way possible.

But I got out.

I lived through, as we humans do.

Two years from then,

I asked the leader of the group why it had happened.

Finally free of the space I was in,

Running from my depression the only way I knew how,

I left.

For the first time, I ignored my family's devotion to finishing things.

I ran for my life because I wanted to want to live.

I started anew.

So when I poured out my heart to this once-roommate, turned villain, turned stranger,

She could only say she was trying to help me.

And I...

I knew it was true.

Cruel.

Not fully accurate because if kindness had been her aim, the insults and mocking laughter were not required.

But it was, to her, the truth.

And I wondered.

The mind is the mind is the mind.

The body is the body is the body.

We each only get one.

If I could've looked into her head, would I have understood?

If I had lived my life in her shoes, would I be the one who could ever do such a thing to someone?

Strange thing about trauma is that it's like getting

Shot

In the stomach

With a bullet.

The pain usually more emotional and mental than physical

But I compare the two now only because

The person with the gun gets to walk away.

Unscathed.

While you, my dear, have to nurse yourself back to health as best you can.

Bleeding on the ground.

Waiting for someone to save you but realising no one else truly can.

Perspective.

To be alive is to know there are infinite possibilities.

I could be a soldier, a poet, a king.

Choosing one path nonetheless with every decision and every breath,

Even as life could branch out in limitless directions.

It's yours, it's yours, it's yours.

Your life.

I know it won't always feel like that's true but

There is no greater thing to know.

It's your mind.

Your body.

Your messy, chaotic, surreal little existence till the end.

There is no one else to feel what you do,

To hold your joy and your hurt in your heart so please...

Protect yourself.

Be kind to yourself.

Please try.

We have too short a timeline to waste it trying to be good enough for people who don't fully know us.

They can't see it.

They don't know

But you do.

You're the only one who can ever know all there is in your tired heart so

Live, live, live.

I never entered this challenge. I don't know why the fuck not. What made me feel too anxious to. What, would someone be upset by my thoughts somehow? It's a writing app. Just like the rest of the world, the Cheshire Cat said it best.

We're all mad here.

I enjoy how madness is portrayed in movies. I like watching loopy characters. They always feel relatable in a way because I can always feel a bit of my insanity from time to time, thrumming under my skin, desperate to be let go and let loose. Buzzing about under there like a thousand little minibees.

I'm fond of my crazy. By crazy, I guess it isn't truly madness in the way madness is usually seen. Usually? I don't know. I've had my moments that might seem good enough for a psych ward, loony bin (I like this word couple tis weird) or asylum. But like... You know. It's all a matter of hiding it when you want to let it out. Suppression.

Problem with suppression is it may help you stay in people's good books, sure. Keep you out of the so-called trouble and embarrassment I might be so certain will come. And to me, shame feels dangerous, right? Overwhelming. So in that way, you avoid so many bad emotions

Just have to swallow it all up, big as it might be, no chewing allowed. Stuff that massive balloon into a box with the rest and brush it off when one pops and you can't help but hit a little wall or scream into a pillow or break down into smiley tears...

This is getting a little out of hand. Not what I'm writing, it feels both sensible to me ofc cos I'm writing it but moreso like garbahj. However... No one knows me and I know no one and it's okay like that. Maybe.

A person on a tiktok asked another character on a tiktok if they'd be upset if they ended up not getting married before they died. She hesitated before she said no. And so did I. So I guess I want marriage. It's just... I want it not with a man. And I don't think that's what people expect of me.

Which is fine. Look, I've had my share of struggles. Some assault and childhood trauma, some depression and social anxiety, panic attacks, twitches, so on. I guess I should be relieved that after giving up on law, my biggest issue is knowing I want no friends while knowing part of me would like one and being gay + what the fuck I do with that.

My sapphictude.

My parents will kill me. Big whoop, I abandoned the degree they chose for me so disappointing em once more wouldn't be all that shocking.

Sometimes dreams die. Sometimes we just make new ones and sometimes we can't. And everything is hard and empty. I don't think the emptiness lasts, though. The way I see it, the universe was sort of empty too, in a way. But new things kept coming in, you know? To fill up the space with colour and insanity and music?

Insanity to me seems to be everything that gives off chaotic energy, including stuff society may not like. But everything is chaos in a way. It's frustrating. It's also a relief cos if I had my whole life planned out the way I saw it when I was studying law for my father, that... that grey, endless, inescapable fog of numbness? I dunno. It's much more suspenseful when you have no idea what the fuck is coming. You can only get anxious about it or plan though it can't always work that way or just... Chill and vibe apathetically?

Sometimes I feel really pathetic and sometimes I know I'm lying to myself but it's all that helps. Sometimes the past gets triggered in my head by hard things and believe me, the things I remember from the backwards times are always the harder, harsher, hurter shit. So I avoid it. But anyway. Anyway...

Anyway.

I don't have a reason for this.

You're right. I'm being too serious. Shows like Hannibal, like the Joker (both Dark Knight and the recent one with his name right on it go Leto), like Umbrella Academy... I hope some day I can just say fuck off and be myself always. Even if it only happens when I'm living in a home on my own, free to do me. It's not that I'm not me. It's that I begin to puppet around people. Or I put myself on mute. Or, on the rare opposite with friends, I go the opposite way and fill the peaceful silence with noise. My noise. I can be so loud. It's always strange when I'm so used to my quieter self.

In the end... I may never be good enough for myself. I may die with regrets. Tbh, only regret I'd have if I died tomorrow was I wish I'd kissed a girl, maybe fallen in love. Cos that's one of the big dreams, right? Only one I wanna grasp out of the whole big house with a car, wife and three kids spiel. Just that one. But I'm worried. And telling myself I'm not good enough might just end up the very reason why I don't end up being good enough.

I guess I'm cool with me hiding in the shadows, it's quiet and cool there but I hope I try to get me a cosy little rogue partner while I'm down there. I hope the dark doesn't swallow me up again too harsh, it was pretty bad for many many years and I'd like to keep it away if you don't mind, dear existence of mine. I hope my period some day disappears and never comes back. I hope to see more sexy, big-hearted, sweet, soft ladies I simp over on TV. More mentally ill, adorable little men on TV too that I adopt as my children who remind me that not all guys are unkind. Not all guys are my father and those nasties on the internet, not all women are the dangerous ones that have fucked with me in different ways.

Not all people are bad people, not all experiences are meant to be terrifying, the outside world is not a devilish hell to stay the fuck away from always, humanity is not a scourge and plague and curse that I must avoid or be ruined by. I hope I am kind to myself because I'm always considering other's feelings to my detriment, like an idiot, like an idiot who was raised that way and was forcefed the consequences with time.

It was my choice though. I could've been different. I chose this person. I chose this me. This... Uzo. And they're... Strange. And bizarre. And someone to worry about at all times. But they're wonderful. They really are. The way they enjoy things. The fondness and pride and awe they can feel for people they've never met, places they've never physically seen, experiences that are not theirs. They have a heart that weeps often but tries to at least.. Be. And they got me through a boatload of shit without throwing ourself off a cliff so...

I owe a lot to them. Every yummy food and good movie/show and intriguing book. Every good moment. The bad ones can go fuck emselves.

Anyway. Anyway. Any gay.

I've been writing for a while now and m tired. Byesies. Take care of thineself always, ya filthy animal ;)

I'm the type of person to fall in love with things, even for a little while. Hobbies, fandoms, origami, how to draw mushroom people (you just do it), mythology, musings on the insanity of existence by Bukowski and Kafka and Watts and Camus and the like.

I guess my fixation these days is DnD. And for some reason, it seems those I listen to have a fixation with gods too. The way they think. The way they work. The reason for their existence. And what would happen if they lived and died.

I've begun one called Natural Six recently where most of the gods of the land are dead. The good ones, anyway. As for the vile ones and the wild ones, little to be known. The DM, storyteller, narrator describes things in painstaking detail. It is at once hard to and wonderful to listen to because I know it is a world I would not want to join but it is nice to leave this one, isn't it?

But the one I really want to talk about is the one I finished semi-recently. It's called Fantasy High and the mythos the DM has created around these characters is so wonderfully bizarre. Strange monarchs, gods, animals and humanoids. Even the frost genie who owns an ice cream shop has a story. And because he cares about the world and what the players want to do, the players care too.

They immerse. And so do I.

My wonder is on the way he's created gods for them. In the way I felt a calling to a god that hadn't existed when I first learnt of Cassandra, deity of doubt. A bizarre concept. To give such a thing a form and remind us it's okay to be confused. It's okay to be lost. That it is uneeringly, unapologetically human to be somewhere you aren't sure of.

We are born. Placed into families we clash with and vibe with at once. Given a race, a body, some genetic patterns of whatever kind, hair and chests and noses and brains. We have minds that form from everything we will ever hear and consider. We make decisions when we are children that affect us decades in the future. Everything affects everything. Everything touches everything. It's all connected and it all feels meaningless but being alive is a story that is only yours so that must mean something, musnt it?

I try to give meanings to things. Even when I don't, my brain does. That was a choice I made as a child that stuck. Perhaps taught to me by my mother. Perhaps just picked cos it made sense. I try to make sense of a world that will never bow for me. Will never shape itself to fit my desire for it. Never with people who are always gentle and kind and non-judgmental. No one telling me I will go to hell because I am gay or agnostic, no one telling me being fat will kill me or that my body cannot belong to me when it's meant to aesthetically please others.

In the end, these are my words, though. My thoughts. My madness. I've built a tapestry of lies about how the world sees me since I was a child. Block by block based on all I saw and heard on TV, from my mother who constantly belittles herself even now, my father who criticises every slight mistake even now. I chose to think the world was out to get me. I haven't let it go. The fear is still there. The shame I feel at being myself despite my longing for acceptance, the freedom I only find when I witness people laugh and bond on my screen.

So Cassandra brought a shift to me. A sort of... Knowing that I already knew before. A memory of two words I've held in my head somewhere since I was gifted them in a dream, once.

Let go.

She is a goddess whose body is made up of the night sky itself, its starry and utterly dark sides. The colours of space, its infinite nature... The world's infinite potential. That of people. Unpredictability isn't just a bad thing. There is good that can happen with surprises. Maybe I'll learn that too some day.

She reminds me of the goddess Hecate, of the crossroads. Women who teach me to find my way by allowing myself to have no way for once. To let go of what I am told by my father, my mother, my siblings, strangers, friends past and few present, this 'world' I've decided must weigh so heavily on me.

A world where every person that has ever and will ever exist has at least one characteristic that I do. A stranger that shares my smile. My lack of religion. My size. My confusion. My traumas here and there. My skin. My exhaustion. My terror. The one that lives beneath my skin and cries out when uncertainty gets much too overwhelming. But here I am still. And the thoughts of your thoughts, world, they haven't killed me yet.

I know it is not an unkind universe. Nor a kind one? I don't think it's meant to be one or the other. I seek a home between; a place where I can just see the world and my future as the world and my future, my cactus-tinted glasses thrown to the wind.

So yeah. Cassandra. I don't worship any gods but once in a while I find myself thinking of her and Hecate, of Ekwensu, Anansi and Loki. And I can't help but hope that if the gods are truly made real by their followers, according to the world the DM built, perhaps it's nice to think there's a goddess made of nebulas, black holes and starlight watching over me, certain that all this uncertainty and limitless potential is as tragic as it is beautiful, a strange sort of smile on their face.

The End ✌

I believe Madea said something along the lines of "if you get your heart broken, have the courage to try it again" some movie some time. I've heard quotes like let what you love kill you, follow your intense obsessions mercilessly and of course, a plethora of love songs. It's not about romance really, it's about love in general. Of things. Of activities. Of people. But I'm here to talk about romance since the way I view it has been so warped over time.

I don't know for sure what my sexuality is. I can tell you for certain that I am a sapphic, that is, super into women. I can't say whether that's exclusive cos I feel that way now but didn't maybe a year or two ago. I don't care for certainty the way I used to. I just think about the way my interest in relationships went from "I want a Disney princess happily ever after where the guy I marry gives me a shelf full of books for free like Beauty and The Beast" to... What it is now.

Yeah, I was a Belle girl. Lots of bookworms saw her exist when that movie came out and claimed her entire identity as a mirror to their own. Moi aussi.

Romance has always been beautiful to me. One of those pretty, hardly obtainable things. Like having a house or a bag of holding that's all junk food? And I was so desperate to be loved back then, in that way. My family didn't feel like enough. They didn't know me fully, nor did they accept certain parts of me such as how gae I am - they still don't. Hobbies were nice and all, still are but the thought of being with someone forever? Someone who would see me and care for it all, no judgement needed, no hell destined for some version of me who finds themself a wife?

I think I equated romance with obsession back then. With worship, with that seemingly unconditional "you can do no wrong in my eyes" idea. You read Wattpad books, watch movies, see what people have decided is the right match... It begins to seep in that if you don't have someone beside you in life, you're missing out on something that your life is worth less without.

I don't agree with it now, of course, but you should have seen me then. How I reached for people. I helped people because I wanted them to get to know me and love me. I allowed myself to be used because it seemed great to be wanted and useful at the time. To be the carer my mother has always been, just in a pretty unhealthy and harmful way. My quest for lovey doves brought me a lot of pain. And with that pain eventually came the nothingness. And after that?

Today, I... Well. I don't know. I still find romance to be some pretty, nearly unobtainable thing. I'm fond of the concept but I can hardly imagine a life partner falling into my lap and choosing me as their own some day. Would be nice though... Wouldn't it? I'm not open to it now, barely getting by, just starting to communicate more with humans again after a bit of triggering mind-fuckery a year and a half ago. But some day. It would be nice to be with a woman some day. And to hold her. And to love her.

Acceptance is love to me. Knowing a person is the way they are and giving a shit about them both because of it and regardless of it, depending on what piece of them we're talking about. Fondness is a nice feeling, affection a sweet rush but yeah... Would be nice to have someone look at all of me and say "yup. I'll keep em." Of course I'd have to reveal all of me in the first place which... Will be a slow process. But isn't that how it goes? You spend your life learning about the people you know and the hobbies you enjoy and the places you live. You find a random candy store on the corner, you learn about an allergy they hadn't even realised they had, you...

You exist. And grow. And love does too. It withers sometimes, of course, but I'm not sure it ever fully dies. I'm not sure any part of me has ever fully disappeared. The little child who wanted to be Belle in that giant books castle still exists somewhere. The one that would've given anything, sanity, skin and soul to have someone lives within my body too. The me who just doesn't want to try anymore and genuinely likes the idea of ending up alone and the excited, maybe naive or maybe intuitive bean who feels 'Hitler had a bride so why the fuck can't I'...

There's a lot of flavours to every idiot sandwich. I hope I get to share these layers. But I'm at a point where I want to take care of myself more than I want to be taken care of. I love myself enough to know that that lack of a lifelong romantic companion is not the end of the world. I'll have my family. I'll get a pet maybe. I'll have plants too. Most importantly, I have me.

People may argue, perhaps cos they've experienced or are currently enjoying their fair share of this dream. I'm happy to sit here in the quiet of my mind, curious but no longer trembling for a taste of it and wait a while.

Sometimes I think about my old life.

I say it's old cos it's in the past but really,

Truly,

It's a year and a half ago.

That's all the time that's passed.

It's a second longer than that every moment I spend on this thoughtless thought-filled poem.

I think about the little cockroaches bursting with life, running around in my cupboard

And the bag of dirty clothes that wouldn't stop growing.

The unironed, smelly clothes I wore

On my unironed, smelly body,

The deodorant I hoped would cover up the truth

Like a mask.

But masks aren't really for hiding stink, are they?

I wonder if they could smell the depression on me.

That word isn't expressive enough.

I wonder if they could sense the stink of a being who no longer wanted to be.

Someone who'd given up a while,

Or as close as you can to it while

Staying alive.

After all, we only get one game over, as far as we know

And for some reason,

I didn't let it get me then and

Certainly won't now.

I think about the poets on this app and

In random bars

And hiding away in the dark in their rooms,

Terrified of the uncertainty that comes with the light outside

And I think about me.

I think about the me that existed a year and a half ago,

Covered in mental cobwebs that

Spun around me and tightened like ye ole sphincter

Till there was very little of me left

And I wonder how the hell they got me out of there.

My parents made it worse.

My sister stayed neutral.

Roommates came and went from the bottom barrel bastards to the

Beaming believers.

Help or a cure for the dying one,

They offered and I

Turned away each one.

They didn't fit me.

It was only The Alchemist within me that could've fixed that shit

But I had no idea what to do with all the broken pieces.

Life has been beautiful.

Life has been a pile of rotting, rancid garbage lit on fire.

My regrets means so little now.

Past in the rear view.

Future less scary now that it actually exists in my mind's eye again.

Some other version of me stayed in that place with the

Cockroaches in cupboards and

Peanut butter or bread, never combined, for a meal or two

Or none

Each day.

Some other me ended the game and slammed the book shut

Before I could find out what lay on the next chapter.

When I was a child, I was left behind.

Again and again.

Musicians just want to be heard.

Artists just want to be seen.

Writers want to be read.

It's a mess of things; using our creations to give the cracks in our foundations a

Name and place to rot in pieces.

But we do it anyway.

I've been so crushed.

By society, I thought.

By parents, I thought.

Till I realised I was the only one in my head.

The person feeding me all that bullshit is the same one holding this little device,

Seated on a purple bed at 3am,

Tired and a bit sweaty and a bit lonely and glad for the solitude and unsatisfied and satiated and

Alive.

Fuck the world and all I've ever felt it needed from me.

I'm going to let my heart do what it wills as I play the randomly selected, experience-based MC of my life

Until it kills me.

I spoke to the woman who made 2022 a torment for me. The one that handed me the worst day of my life on a platter riddled in spider webs and tough, scratchy sponges and dirty laundry.

Surprisingly, it's not myself, this time. Although I of course had a part to play. It was a roommate who used me as her personal piggy bank, then had me punished once I genuinely couldn't borrow her money anymore, a puppeteering that lasted the entire day, worsening and worsening to its climax. The violation of my right to say no and be heard.

I wanted closure, maybe. Even as closure isn't a real thing, just a hope that one last talk will close up the ache a little. She told me I was the rude one. She told me that she was only trying to help me and that she appreciated the money. She told me she had no idea that she'd triggered memories of when I was abused as a child because how could she?

Oh the fear. Oh the horror. The way shame and terror pricked at my skin until the burn became a constant normalcy. All that just for her to say it was a misunderstanding.

Just for me to agree that it likely was.

I wasn't very in control of myself that year. Nor the one before. The depression hit its peak. Nothing mattered, especially not myself. I thought I was a ghost. Drowning and impossible to perceive beneath the waves. So I did nothing. Barely showered, barely ate, hoping for someone to save me while hoping I'd finally have the "courage" to damn myself to an afterlife or the lack of it by my own hands.

She was bothered by me for a long time, though she never said anything kind. And she wanted to "help". It's funny. You know, I think Hitler truly thought he was helping too. I think most cult leaders convince themselves of their own goodness as well. My father thought it was for the best when he chose courses for my sister and I. She thought her force and her commands and the touches I did not consent to were helping.

I get it. They say we're all trying to lift each other up. I think humanity is a mix of things. I think one of the biggest problems we have is leaning towards trying to be good so hard that we condemn all that isn't a part of that. Decide we are only supposed to be one thing rather than accepting both truths. The duality of our own nature.

We're afraid of fucking things up and the fear, the shame, the rage, it only worsens this. All of it. I'd never known depression quite so well till I sunk that low. Till apathy became all I had left. Till the bare minimum became a true struggle for a being that was once obsessed with achieving their father's view of academic success. I've watched people try to help me. Try to love me, even. Use me. Screw me over.

I've learnt that maybe the only way to stop with all the mind-fuckery, all the low self esteem and my old friend depression and my still friend social anxiety? Letting shit go.

My entire life was built on the foundation that I had to be good enough. At first, that was for my father who I hardly saw. It then became a thing I felt towards the society as a whole which is... Difficult, to say the least, for a being who grew to become an agnostic, nonbinary-ish lesbian-probably. Oh! Fat, too. I had this conviction as a kid that once I attained perfection, everything would be okay.

But that quest is a suffocating one. It will chew up the true you and whisper that there must be something broken, something impossible to love, if you're not what you believe the world asks of you. How crushing it was to grow and realise over time that so much of me was different from the standard my parents had set. How crushing to realise that I needed to fake energy because "man is a social animal", I needed to fall for a man and have his babies because it's my duty as a woman, I needed to care about fitting into box after box or I wasn't a human being.

This rant was sponsored by my awakening to myself. And to my own version of the truth, the same way Mother Teresa had her version and Stalin had his. This world can be terrifying. But only when you view it as such. It will only consume you if you let it. The price of trying to be a human is that you will forget that you have always been just that, exactly as you are. You will spend years of your life climbing some great mountain of success that you were already dropped at the top by virtue of simply being alive. You will push yourself off again and again, desperate to mould your mountain to the exact shape of some mental amalgamation of other people's. The perfect peak. The perfect view.

But maybe some day you too will realise that it's... Pointless to hack away at yourself just to fit a specific tune. Humanity has existed in thousands of thousands of thousands. What are we aiming for, really? Why not just stay right here, right now, just ourselves a little while and see how that goes? Even the gods that have been crafted are imperfect, rageful, violent beings at times, just as capable of love and joy as they are repentance and heartbreak.

Hell is other people. Heaven is other people. As a socially anxious fuck whose mind tries to keep them safe from a non-existent, anticipated danger half the time, maybe we're all just human, flowing between both extremities forever.

A blessed, wretched purgatory of a species. And what a purge it's been.